Monday, 26 September 2011

Great Expectations

Anybody seen my eye patch?

You settle down to celebrate the bi-centenary of Dickens' birth for a pleasant hour or two with 'Great Expectations' and discover to your horror that you have picked up Stevenson's 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by mistake.

You know the one where you perform like monsters for half an hour and then revert to normality and ordinariness, showing both facets of the team at a single sitting.

We began at Wigan where we left off at Liverpool: quick passing, retaining possession scoring two early goals and the promise of more and then relaxing or in the case of Sandro and Van Der Vaart, both returning from injury, fading away.

Adebayor claiming an injured eye brought out the old school ruthlessness in Harry which he has shown before with Gomes, Bale, Lennon and others, who declared him fit to continue probably with the words, 'You've got two, use the other one'.

Apparently he requested an eye patch which Harry turned down on the grounds that it would make him look like Johnny Depp, leading to too much swash and not enough buckle. Actually Harry hasn't seen 'Pirates of the Caribbean' 1,2, 3 or 4 because he doesn't wear one in any of these films.

I think it was a premonition of Ade in an eye-patch that led me to take to the lifeboat earlier in the season. He set up Van Der Vaart in some style after only 3 minutes after some charitable defending by Wigan.

They scored from one of their few meaningful attacks from a defensive muddle initiated by Ekotto but aided by Ledley, Kaboul and Parker, Diame finding the corner on 50 minutes to give us the once familiar tenterhooked run in.

In the end we had 65% possession and a dozen shots to their 4 which sounds comfortable but was only so in retrospect. A similar defensive muddle was evident at Liverpool too but on that occasion Suarez was correctly ruled offside.

I do not subscribe to the theory that as long as you get the three points all is well. Better teams will punish this occasional lack of certainty across the back four. This was Ledley's third consecutive game and three consecutive wins to boot. Coincidence obviously.

Bale the 'unstoppable force' who I made MOM, is getting back to his best and for the second week running had his full back sent off for two yellow cards. He scored from a near post header from one of our nine corners mostly well taken by Modric who was subdued after being taken away from the centre of midfield.

Parker again played well especially in the first half; Van Der Vaart took his goal well and Walker is a super de luxe version of Hutton but needs covering when he rampages forward. Kaboul rattled the bar with a deflected free kick and looks a strong pairing with King. But then who doesn't?

This week we have Shamrock Rovers and Arsenal, both highly winnable though I expect the NLD to end in a draw, they often do whatever the current form of the two clubs. We won't underestimate Shamrock but our second strings should tie this one up on Thursday.(See it on Channel 5)

In our occasional 'Where are they now?' feature we find Peter Crouch at Stoke ending Man.Utd's winning run with a proper header of a kind rarely seen at Spurs. It gives me great pleasure to watch him now mainly because he is playing for someone else.

The guy in charge of marketing at Spurs, Charlie Wijerata, who has barely been in the job a year and is probably on £100.000 or more has decided that our history, tradition, and reputation for good football are our key branding points.

I would have told THFC that for nothing. What else is there for a football club? Billionaire owner? Racist fans? Mercenary players? Whoever can I be thinking of?

I'll even let them have the JimmyG2 slogan free of charge:

'Good football before success:

Success through good football'.

A small levy on all Spurs tattoo logos, which are the new 'branding', should produce squillions. Eye patches with the cockerel motif available now in the Club shop.

And now here's our unique Highlight and Goals service, completely free of charge.

Did you say Modders was not playing centrally? I was in another part of the universe so only saw what's above, for which thank you, but Modric has to 'run the game' from the middle of the park. That's what he's for! Sometimes Harry worries me, eyepatch or no eyepatch.

Anon 16:53Moses their best player and quick too, was shrewdly moved to the left to try to exploit the gaps left by Walker.If you have rampaging full backs you must provide them with cover.

Kennyid.You can catch a glimpse of Modric on the right for Van's goal.With Parker and Sandro playing centrally and Bale on the left he was a little out of things.I agree with you. Needs to be in the engine room.